Saudi women fight for justice for 5-year-old girl allegedly beaten, raped by father

Self-styled cleric who preached about the dangers of immoral behaviour is waiting to be sentenced for the rape and murder of his daughter.

Lama al Ghamdi, 5, died after allegedly being brutally beaten and raped by her father. Her death has sparked demands that Saudi Arabia introduce a law to protect children from abuse and reform a justice system that discriminates against females.

He was supposed to be her protector, someone 5-year-old Lama al Ghamdi could turn to for unconditional love and security.

Instead her father Fayhan al Ghamdi, a self-styled cleric on Saudi television who preached about the dangers of immoral behaviour, is waiting to be sentenced for the rape and murder of his daughter.

Women’s activists are fighting to ensure Lama doesn’t suffer a second injustice: they are demanding that Saudi Arabia’s rulers introduce a law to protect children from abuse and reform a justice system that discriminates against females.

Fayhan al Ghamdi may be sentenced as early as March 3 and receive as little as five years in jail or be ordered to pay $40,000 in “blood money” to Lama’s mother, Sayeda, to avoid the death penalty, which is the usual punishment for murder.

It is an unjust system, said Aziza al Yousef, a human-rights activist who helped bring the case to international attention on Twitter two weeks ago.

“Sayeda is asking for life imprisonment or the death penalty because really, this man tortured Lama and did very bad things to her,” said al Yousef in an interview from Riyadh, where she is in regular contact with the mother.

Lama’s story has scandalized the conservative kingdom, where domestic violence and child abuse are usually hushed up as family affairs. Even if cases do get to court, fathers are treated leniently because they are men.

Lama’s case began when Fayhan al Ghamdi brought her to hospital in Hotat Bani Tamim, a town south of Riyadh, on Dec. 25, 2011. The little girl’s medical record showed horrific injuries: her back was broken, her skull partially crushed. She had been whipped with an electrical cable and the wounds burned. She had been raped repeatedly.

The hospital staff called police and al Ghamdi was arrested.

Lama had been staying with her father. Her parents were divorced because al Ghamdi was physically abusive toward Egyptian-born Sayeda, who lives on social assistance and is raising five other children, said al Yousef. She had custody of the girl. The father, who was remarried, had visitation rights.

“Visitation wasn’t a problem because he was nice to Sayeda’s other children and she did not sense anything wrong,” said al Yousef. But during a visit in 2011, al Ghamdi refused to return Lama.

“He was only supposed to take her for two weeks. Sayeda threatened to call the police and that’s when he took her to the hospital,” she said. Al Ghamdi told police that he subjected his child to a virginity test before she was hospitalized.

For 10 months Lama fought for her life. But her injuries were too severe and she died on Oct. 22, 2012.

Sayeda appeared on a local television show talking about her loss. That’s when al Yousef got involved.

“I was furious,” said al Yousef, a 54-year-old grandmother and computer sciences lecturer at King Saud University. She publicized the case on Twitter with the help of other activists and turned it into an international story. The hashtag #IamLama launched by activist Manal al Sharif is popular.

But Lama cannot expect much justice.

“There is no specific law that bans child abuse or protects children from child abuse,” said al Yousef.

Fathers and husbands who murder their children or wives are usually sentenced to five to 12 years in prison at most, she said. Under Saudi Arabia’s interpretation of Islamic law, a judge can also order al Ghamdi to pay “blood money” to the victim’s family in exchange for the death sentence.

The root of the problem is that Saudi Arabia does not have a codified penal system and judges have total discretion in sentencing based on their own interpretation of Shariah law, wrote Eman al Nafjan, a doctorate student at King Saud University and blogger who has also publicized Lama’s case.

“That means you can have two cases of murder, divorce or whatever with the exact same specifications and in the courtroom of the same judge and still get two different rulings depending on who the defendants are, what they wore, their piety, etc.,” she wrote.

International exposure by women’s activists may bring reform because the royal family wants to avoid embarrassment, said Karen Elliott House, author of a book on Saudi society, On Saudi Arabia.

“They don’t want to be seen as uncivilized and they don’t want Islam to be seen as an uncivilized, backward religion,” she said.